


Ghost In the Machine

by likeaboss



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Post-Divorce, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-18
Updated: 2011-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-26 06:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeaboss/pseuds/likeaboss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt at xmen_firstkink. Charles' mind gets transferred into Cerebro, and it's not an ideal place to be. When there's nothing left to be done, he wants Erik to come back to say goodbye. (It's not as hopeless and depressing as it sounds, I promise! D:)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost In the Machine

**Author's Note:**

> This deviates a bit from the original prompt. Warnings for temporary character death, alcoholism, and Erik using his abilities to restrain/control people with metal.

Erik gets the call halfway through a Brotherhood meeting that he’s spent three months putting together. He stands up and walks out without saying anything, leaving Raven to make hasty apologies.

He’s on a plane within half an hour, pilot’s wrists encircled in what used to be the safety buckles of passenger seats. Erik tracks his movements through the metal, stays nearby and forces the metal tighter, tighter, until the pilot cries out that the plane just can’t go any faster. Then Erik shifts his focus from the metal cuffs to the workings of the plane, and proves the pilot wrong.

When he strides onto the Xavier property, he follows the thrum of metal that carries Charles’ signature. It’s not his watch, though, not his cufflinks, not the zip of his trousers. It’s something much, much, bigger, as though Charles is encased in a metal-lined room...no, that’s not right, the feeling is too small, too tightly-wound around him, _through_ him. As if Charles has coils and coils of wire cocooning him, shaping him, sustaining him.

The feeling leads him to Cerebro.

“Where is he?” Erik barks, and Hank doesn’t look startled by the intrusion, as if he’d been expecting Erik to arrive in such a short time despite the distance. “Where _is_ he?” Erik shouts. Better to let anger seep through than the tumultuous emotions lying just below the surface.

“Hello, old friend,” says a voice, but it’s not Hank, and the room is empty but for the two of them.

“Charles?” Erik scans the entire room, pushing his energy out far beyond what’s needed in such a small place made almost entirely of metal. And again, he receives the familiar, comforting feeling of _Charles_ through the metal, as though he’s right there in front of Erik.

Which, of course, he is. “I’m glad you came,” says Cerebro, but in Charles’ voice, with Charles’ inflection, with Charles’ gentleness, fondness, hastily-covered exhaustion.

Erik manages to make sure there’s a chair underneath him before he sags into it.

\--

Despite the assurance of the voice (because Erik refuses to call it Charles, but Cerebro isn’t alive, could never say the things it’s saying to him now,) Erik doesn’t believe it. It’s too ludicrous to believe, too beyond the realm of reality, and far, far too painful.

“What would we have to benefit from lying about this?” Hank asks, twisting uncomfortably in the metal bands strapping him to the wall of Cerebro by his shoulders, his waist, his thighs.

“We may not agree with one another about everything,” the voice says, sounding tired. “But I would never be so cruel to you, Erik. I asked you to come because I knew you’d have to see it with your own eyes.”

But that’s the problem. There is nothing for Erik to see except a cold, quiet room with a jumble of wires that they expect him to believe is his friend. He recalls mocking Charles here, that first time, about being a lab rat, mostly to cover his own anxiety over being in a room so reminiscent of the place where he himself had been attached to wires and poked and prodded until his voice was hoarse from screaming. And yes, this feels like something Shaw would have done, another game to play, another lie to settle in with the rest until his mind is so twisted he can’t tell truth from fiction anymore.

But Charles is not Shaw. Charles would never condone manipulating someone like this. And that’s what stands out in his mind most clearly, later, when he tries to recall the moment he stopped rejecting the possibility.

“Where is his body?”

Hank steps away from the loosened restraints nervously, runs a hand down the control panel almost...soothingly. Erik bristles.

“In my lab.”

Erik stands to leave, and the voice - _Charles_ \- says, “There’s nothing of me there, Erik.”

Erik has to see for himself.

\--

The body in Hank’s lab is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Erik feels it the moment he steps into the room. There are wires and tubes and machines clustered around a bed, keeping it moving - chest rising, heart beating, even an occasional twitch - sure, but there’s nothing there but an empty shell. Erik can sense the way the metal around the body is neutral, the way nothing carries a signature. It’s interesting, in a sort of clinically detached way. He’s never had an opportunity to test his abilities around a physically-living, brain-dead patient. He focuses on that, because that’s all that’s left besides a deep, all-encompassing grief.

“He didn’t want you to see him like this.” Hank has come in without Erik even noticing.

“How did this happen?” Erik controls the impulse to crush everything in the room, blot out the sight of the pale body that suddenly seems so small, so fragile.

“We were testing the range of Cerebro,” Hank begins, and it’s evident that he’s clinging to the same detachment that Erik is. “The Professor thought he could extend his power to find mutants overseas.”

“And you had no idea this might happen?”

Hank has no sense of self-preservation, it seems, because he slumps and admits, “I thought we were pushing too hard, trying too much without testing it first. I had no idea this might be the result, but-”

“But _what_.” Erik forgoes shaping any one of the numerous metal instruments in the room into a collar to choke the life out of him, and opts for his fingers instead. “But you thought it was worth the risk? You thought _anything_ was worth the risk of losing him?”

Hank struggles in Erik’s grip, and Erik’s forgotten just how strong this beast of a boy is. “No! Of course not! I begged him to stop, Erik, I swear, I even tried to shut it down without him knowing, but he...he...” Hank’s struggling diminishes, and Erik releases him.

 _He insisted,_ Erik finishes. _He wouldn’t acknowledge his own limitations. He arrogantly believed he knew more, knew **better** , and wouldn’t listen to reason._ Yes, this Erik can believe.

“Fix it,” Erik demands, drawing himself up to his full height, using the voice he has used to intimidate humans and mutants alike.

Hank laughs, the sound humorless and painful. “You think I haven’t tried?”

“Try _harder_.”

“There’s nothing left to _try_ ,” Hank snarls, and suddenly Erik can see the gangly, awkward boy he’d come to know those months before Cuba, eyes wide and guileless, admitting his own failure and hating himself more than anyone else ever could. “He didn’t ask you to come so you could bully me into working harder,” Hank says, the fight draining out of him. “He asked you to come so he could say goodbye.”

This time Erik can’t control himself, and every piece of metal in the room vibrates, sending up a cacophony of noise that’s nearly deafening. When it stops, the only things left untouched are Charles’ bed and the machinery surrounding it.

“Got it out of your system now?” Hanks asks, and for a moment Erik considers throttling him again. But the question isn’t asked with a sneer, not even a hint of censure in it. In fact, he looks sympathetic, and Erik wonders if Hank had had a similar breakdown.

“Yes.”

“Good, because if you lose it in Cerebro, you’re not just hurting the machine. Got it? You’re hurting _him_.”

Erik has done enough of that for one lifetime. He tamps down on his ability, waves Hank away, and takes a few moments to say goodbye to the lifeless body that while no longer holds Charles Xavier’s consciousness, has the face Erik has spent countless nights dreaming about when he can sleep and recalling in vivid, painful memory when he can’t.

\--

Hank is flipping switches when Erik returns, patting at thick panels and stroking thin wires. Erik refrains from comment, but a powerful jealousy overtakes him all the same.

“Charles?” Erik calls out, unsure of where to focus his attention.

“He’s not awake yet,” Hank murmurs, fiddling with a knob.

“What do you mean, he’s not awake?” The sudden, encompassing fear that Charles has somehow drifted away already makes Erik’s voice sound brittle.

“I had to shut him down when you left. He’s not used to projecting his voice out loud, through the machine. It drains him.”

“Then how do you...” Erik is suddenly shamefully aware of just how thoughtless he’s been. Of course Charles would communicate telepathically, even from this machine. _Especially_ from this machine. He’s been speaking out loud for Erik’s benefit, and because he has no other choice.

Erik pulls the helmet from his head and sets it aside. All the distrust, the fear that Charles would infiltrate his mind, force him to do or say or think things, seems so ridiculous now. If he hadn’t been wearing the helmet, would Charles have called for him when this happened? Would he have come to Erik late one night, babbling incessantly about his breakthrough? Would Erik have had a chance to keep him from pushing himself so hard that everything was lost?

Erik knows the truth. It’s not just the helmet that kept them separated. Erik could have stayed, could have laid down his sword and remained by Charles’ side instead of insisting that Charles be by his. And they would have spent countless nights over a chessboard, arguing about their ideologies, and maybe continued the arguments into bed, where Charles would be loose and pliant and sleepy and Erik could have said, _You’re pushing yourself too hard. You’re not invincible. For me, Charles, take it slower, for me._ And Charles would have agreed.

The guilt hangs over Erik like a shroud. It nearly suffocates him.

“Erik?” Charles sounds sleepy, but not rested.

“I’m here, Charles.”

- _I know,_ \- Charles says, and all sleepiness is chased away by the joy in his voice. - _You’ve taken the helmet off._ \- Erik opens his mind, welcomes the familiar brush of Charles’, tries to hold it close as if it might prevent it ever leaving again.

“Raven tells me it looks quite ridiculous anyway,” Erik teases, and a jolt of _wrongness_ shudders through him. This isn’t right, making jokes when Charles is trapped in a machine, when he’s called Erik here to say goodbye.

- _Oh, she’s absolutely right,_ \- Charles laughs, and Erik feels something split inside him when he laughs along.

Their laughter dies out though, and then things start to feel somber, serious, _final_. Erik frantically tries to come up with a way to make Charles laugh again, to extend what time they have, to put off the inevitable.

- _I’m dying, Erik,_ \- Charles says, and there’s no way to put that off with humor.

“How is that possible? You’re not even...you’re not...” Erik struggles for words, and it’s not only because he doesn’t understand the technicalities of what’s happened here.

- _I don’t have a physical form,_ \- Charles supplies. - _But it’s not my body that’s dying. It’s _me_. My consciousness doesn’t know how live here, and the machine isn’t built to house me. I’m losing bits and pieces. Bigger ones, lately, and Hank and I haven’t figure out how to funnel them back into my body. I don’t know how long until I’ve escaped entirely._ -

 _Escaped_. Not drifted away, not lost, not died. _Escaped._ As if Charles is looking forward to his freedom.

- _I am, my friend,_ \- Charles hums into his head. - _I’ve been tethered, these last few years, in one way or another. To a body that wouldn’t work properly, to a machine that doesn’t allow me to look on the faces of my friends, doesn’t have arms to embrace them when I would like nothing better._ -

“Charles,” Erik says, but it’s a half-swallowed, half-broken off thing that escapes his throat. Charles’ lack of blame is so evident in his thoughts, but the regret, the grief, the feeling of opportunities missed, is abundantly clear. Erik presses his hand against the nearest wall, damp palm leaving a misty handprint.

Charles shoots him the feeling he’s just experienced - Erik’s skin against the metal, not a feeling, exactly, not a physical touch, but the data related to it traveling to him in milliseconds, the memory of what that touch would feel like against human skin.

- _Oh, Erik,_ \- Charles sighs. - _I have missed you._ -

Erik notices, belatedly, that Hank has taken his leave, although it wouldn’t have kept him from pressing his forehead against the cool metal, wouldn’t have mattered who else was there when he brushes his fingers over the dials, the switches, the cords, the lights that seem to glow faintly brighter as Erik passes over them.

Charles sends him a continuous loop of encouragement, lets him feel his happiness, his warmth, his love. And he seems so _strong_ in Erik’s mind, so whole, like the past few years were just a quickly-dissipating dream and they’re on the lawn again, their companionship easy, uncomplicated, and brilliant with the promise of more. And it hits Erik suddenly, like a punch to the gut. This _can’t_ be the end. This is unacceptable. He won’t let it happen.

- _Erik,_ \- Charles laughs, still warm from the touches. - _Stubborn ‘til the end, as always._ -

“I’ll find a way to fix this,” Erik says. “There must be something. I’ll find someone.”

Charles’ mind settles into Erik’s comfortably, like he’s curling up with him for a nap, sleepy and sated and happy. - _I didn’t ask Raven to come,_ \- he says, voice a little fuzzy around the edges, as though he’s losing the ability to keep them whole. - _Because I didn’t want her to remember me like this. I’d like to say goodbye while she’s still away, while she still thinks of me as she always has._ -

Erik holds onto Charles as tightly as he can, refusing to let go, and he can feel Charles reaching out across the country, brushing against minds and leaving a trace of his happiness as he goes. Erik wants to reach out and snatch them back, take every bit of Charles that he’s left with others and keep them, find a way to reconstruct them into something whole.

Eventually Charles touches Raven’s mind, and Erik can only feel the familiarity of her, can’t make out the words they’re exchanging. He can only feel the initial happiness of contact, the fear, the sadness, the anger as she understands what Charles must be telling her. He imagines she’ll be on a plane as quickly as Erik was, and understands that Charles must know, too. He didn’t want her to see him trapped in a machine. He wouldn’t have told her if there was any chance she’d make it to the mansion before Charles was gone.

Slowly, Charles starts to come back, voice less fuzzy now and more of an outright slur.

- _I’m afraid I’ve overestimated my own abilities again,_ \- he says, and there’s a hint of attempted humor, but the exhaustion is so thick even Erik’s brain feels fuzzy from it. Erik tries to organize his thoughts, tries to quell the frantic bursts of anger and fear, so that Charles can settle into him again. - _I think you should ask Hank to let me sleep for a bit._ -

“Stay with me a bit longer,” Erik says, like it’s a careless suggestion, like it doesn’t matter one way or the other.

- _Mmm,_ \- Charles hums. - _Forever, if I could, my friend._ -

The lights flicker and fade to dull glows around him, and Erik settles his back against one of the control panels, dragging his fingers over the floor. He feels Charles’ residual contentment seeping through him at the touch, and it’s enough to hold his own grief at bay for a while.

Erik stays while Charles sleeps, stays locked in his position while he feels Charles fade away. He stays until the lights flicker and fade completely, and then he stays until he can face a world that no longer contains Charles Xavier.

He stays for a very, very long time.

\--

Epilogue

In the six months since his last visit to the Xavier mansion, Erik has done exactly two things worthy of mention: 1) he has disbanded The Brotherhood, and 2) he has consumed enough alcohol to keep him in a permanent state of numbness.

The second thing was not caused by the first, nor the first by the second. The numbness the alcohol provides is only an extension of the feeling he’d had as he told his mutant brothers and sisters to go find their own way in the world. He wasn’t capable of fueling their hatred anymore; he’d used up all his hatred, apparently, in his first disjointed month after Charles’ death, trying to find someone, _anyone_ to blame. It had been easy with Shaw, he’d been a clear goal, the embodiment of Erik’s loss and fear and pain. But there is no one to hate for Charles’ death, no one to blame, no one to kill. Except maybe himself, and Erik is far too selfish to ever take his own life.

So he drinks, and occasionally he lets Raven join him and they talk about all the things they never could before - the mistakes they’d made, the guilt they feel. He hopes it clears her conscience a bit, hopes it chips away at a little of her grief. It doesn’t do anything for him.

He hasn’t returned to the mansion. He doesn’t know what Hank has done with Cerebro. Raven had mentioned once, in an off-hand sort of way, that Charles’ body was still alive and well in the lab, just in case. Erik had drunk so much that night that by morning, he wasn’t sure if he’d hallucinated her presence the night before or not.

In fact, he’s begun to hallucinate quite a lot of things. Charles’ face, sometimes, when Erik’s just rolled over in bed and his eyes flicker open for the barest of moments to determine if the sunlight is too bright to endure or not. He catches a brilliant smile, a pair of eyes alight with happiness, and by the time he’s opened his eyes again, the image is gone.

Charles’ scent, sometimes, when Erik has begun to drift off in a stupor and inhales deeply, on the threshold of sleep. He catches the scent of expensive aftershave tinged with scotch and old books, but when he jerks awake and breathes deep again, all he can smell is the alcohol permeating the room. None of it is scotch.

And, most disturbingly, sometimes Charles’ voice, when Erik’s most alert, just coming out of a hangover or after one of Raven’s visits. - _My friend,_ \- it will say, or - _Stay with me, Erik,_ \- or _-Give me time._ \- _Time to do what?_ Erik wants to ask, but he’s comfortable with his current level of apparent insanity and isn’t willing to take the step needed to talk back to the imaginary voices in his head.

And then one day, Erik hears the voice again, but it’s not just a voice. It’s Charles’ voice, clear and resounding, and Charles’ scent, fleeting, but enough to take two deep lungfuls of air to verify, and Charles’ face, burning against the backs of his eyelids as though it’s been tattooed there. And Charles’ _thoughts_ , the welcome, familiar weight of them against Erik’s, slotting in as if Erik had laid out a welcome mat and kept a candle burning for their return. Maybe he has.

Erik isn’t home to receive the phone call from Hank, and later Raven will refuse to talk to him for three weeks because he hadn’t stopped to pick her up on the way to the hangar.

The plane is smaller than the one he’d hijacked before, the pilot less frightened. The bands of steel at the pilot’s wrists are the same, as is his insistence that the plane is only capable of traveling at certain speeds. Erik takes great pleasure in disabusing the pilot of this notion of limitation, and he hopes the pilot appreciates having his mind opened as much as Erik does when he walks into the lab and finds a brilliant, much-beloved smile waiting for him.


End file.
